A concerted hate campaign against an honest IAS officer has been encouraged by many people with vested interests who are affected by some of the actions taken by the Indian Ambassador. Who all are unhappy about the Ambassadors decision to reduce school fees, introduce transparency and accountability in the functioning of Indian schools is well known.
Recently when two major tragedies hit the Indian community in Oman - a major road accident and natural calamity in Salalah, the southern part of Oman, the anti-Ambassador group got into action. Despite the fact that no other Indian Ambassador has taken keen interest in solving the problems facing the common man, a group of "prominent Indians" got into a dirty action --they collected signatures from friends and well wishers and send a fax to the senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs New Delhi and the Rajastan Chief Minister misinforming them that the ambassador did not do anything for those affected by the tragedy!
A copy of the fax message send by the "patriotic" Indians was send to newspapers which were also carried away by the philanthropic movement of such "vested interests". A section of the business community was joined by some of the self proclaimed social workers, who could not get into the school committees even after bringing recommendations from New Delhi, also joined the campaign. Copy of the newspaper reports that proved the ambassador's "inaction and inefficiency" were also send to New Delhi and Rajasthan. One of the reporters confessed privately that 'there was no need to write such a report. I knew that the Indian Ambassador and other embassy officials were fully engaged in rehabilitation work," he says.
It is a fact that the Indian Embassy has no office in Salalah. Even though Oman has an Embassy in New Delhi and a consulate in Mumbai, Indian Embassy has got only one office in Muscat. Thousands of Indians living in Salalah, 1000 kms away from Muscat, are served from the capital region through a representative office.
During the tragedy, the Indian Ambassador assigned one of his juniors to visit the place and do the needful. Sanadanan, President of Indian Social Club, Salalah, who is the special representative of the Indian Embassy in the southern region and his team were also active during the crisis period. Despite all these concrete steps taken by the Indian Ambassador and embassy staff, the so called patriotic Indians were engaged in a character assassination campaign against K.M.Meena for obvious reasons. It is time to campaign for an Indian embassy office in Salalah so that prompt action can be taken at periods of crisis. The common Indian citizen in Oman fully understand the ulterior motives behind such character assassination campaigns! Since they have seen former Indian Ambassadors who used to wine and dine with the rich businessman and acted according to their whims and fancies without considering the public good, they can easily identify the virtues and vices of the current Ambassador.(keralamonitor.com)